A 70-year-old man who may have been suffering from dementia when he bought a $62,000 sports car from a Petaluma dealer will be able to return the vehicle without penalty, the dealership's owner said Monday.
"There's no doubt the car is coming back," said Greg Dexter, owner of North Bay Nissan.
Dexter said he and his employees have been inundated with angry phone calls and emails after Ed Dowdall's estranged wife went public last week, and a story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, with her demands that the dealership void the deal because of her husband's medical condition.
Amy Appleton Dowdall said her husband, now in a group home, never would have agreed to payments of $923 a month for the convertible Nissan Murano last December had he been thinking clearly.
She hired an attorney in an effort to get the deal rescinded. Meanwhile, the car sits idle in the garage of her Petaluma home.
"I've got a brand new car that I don't want," she said Monday.
She said her husband, from whom she's been separated for years, was in no condition to give an interview Monday, which left it to her and others to speculate why he walked into North Bay Nissan on Dec. 14 and said he wanted to buy the white Murano parked on the showroom floor.
Dexter, who began working for what was then Novato Datsun in 1976 and worked his way up to become owner, said disputes over vehicle purchases come with the job.
"But I've never had a situation where I've been accused of selling a car to someone who wasn't in their right mind," he said.
Dexter and another North Bay Nissan executive, Ron Coury, invited reporters to the Auto Center Drive dealership Monday to defend the company's actions.
That included a presentation of the salesman's notes related to the transaction, as well as playing voice mail messages Ed Dowdall left with the salesman the day after the purchase.
Dexter said the records support the salesman's contention that nothing Dowdall said or did that day would have led anyone to believe he was not fit to make the purchase.
Dexter said car dealers are prohibited from selling vehicles to people who they suspect are under the influence of drugs, attempting a fraud or exhibiting other "red flags," none of which he said pertained to Dowdall at the time he was buying the car.
Dexter said Dowdall was not a stranger to employees, having bought a Nissan Altima Hybrid that he traded in for the Murano from the dealership in 2008. He also serviced the vehicle there.
Last November, Dowdall visited the dealership to inquire about buying the Murano and in December returned to complete the deal.
"There was never any doubt that he wasn't in his right mind for purchasing a vehicle, and he had purchased a vehicle from us before," Dexter said.
He said Dowdall asked for permission for a dog that he brought with him to sit in the front passenger seat during a ride-along.
Neither that request, nor his statement to the salesman that his wife was going to be unhappy with him for buying the car, were seen as reasons to derail the deal.
"I've been selling cars for 36 years," Dexter said. "You should see the arguments on the showroom floor. I usually tell them to take it outside."
He said the salesman agreed to Dowdall's request that he accompany him to his wife's house in the new car. As predicted, she was not happy.
The two sides dispute whether Dowdall's wife or his brother knew he was at the dealership that morning.
Dexter said Dowdall talked to someone on his cellphone several times during the transaction and he questions why no one went to the dealership to try to stop it.
Appleton Dowdall, however, said she and her husband's brother were at the Petaluma Police Department that morning deciding what to do after she said her husband threatened to kill her the previous night.
She said Ed Dowdall, who was living with his brother in Bodega Bay, was so upset that night that he kicked several holes in the walls of the house.
"He just tore the house apart," said Appleton Dowdall, who helps people to find housing in her work for a Petaluma nonprofit.
Her husband suffers from Lewy Body Dementia, according to a letter Dowdall's physician at UCSF Medical Center submitted to the car dealership in February.
The doctor wrote that Dowdall had undergone unsuccessful brain surgery in October to help ease symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. As a result, he was experiencing "significant worsening of his impulse control," had lost all insight into his medical condition and "was verbally abusive to almost everyone around him."
Nevertheless, Dowdall had the wherewithal to drive himself to the Petaluma dealership. At the time, he had a valid driver's license and insurance.
Appleton Dowdall said she should have demanded her husband take the Murano back to the dealership on the day he bought it. But she didn't want to upset him.
She said he's living in a group home now and he doesn't know she's trying to return the car.
"I don't want him to know it because it upsets his environment," she said.
Dexter said he had spoken with Appleton Dowdall's attorney and with a Wells Fargo representative last month to try and resolve the dispute.
He said the publicity has "created a lot of heartache for me" and death threats.
Dexter promised Ed Dowdall will not have to make any payments on the car and the dispute will not harm Dowdall's credit.
Dexter declined to be more specific, including as to whether Dowdall will be reimbursed for the $5,000 he put down on the car using a credit card or for the outstanding loan amount related to the trade-in.
Dexter said the dealership hasn't heard from Ed Dowdall since Dec. 15.
"Unless there is something wrong with his car, I don't expect to hear from him," Dexter said.
You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: